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How a Toronto teacher turned her passion for trivia into a Jeopardy! jackpot

by News Staff

Posted Jul 18, 2018 7:25 pm EST

CityNews reporter Amanda Ferguson sat down with Toronto teacher Michelle Cabral to chat about her three-game winning streak on Jeopardy!

Q: So fans of Jeopardy! want to know, how do you make it on the show?

A: They put the online test up every year, year and a half, I think going on nine years now. It’s one of those things that sort of comes around, you register for it, you take it and you put it out of your mind. It’s just something fun you do because you love trivia. Last October, randomly was checking my email and I got an email saying we’d like to invite you to an audition in November, we’re coming to Toronto. Alex Trebek randomly showed up to our audition because he was receiving the Order of Canada and he had like a 20 minute Q&A with all of us hopefuls. Then I got the call in February saying can you be in LA in a month

Q: How much money did you win after 4 rounds?

A: $48,693 US. As to what that will look like in Canadian, I guess we’ll see!

Q: So that’s the monetary prize but what to you is the biggest prize of all of appearing on the show?

A: The fact that it was everything I wanted it to be and more. My goal was not to win. My goal was just to win and go and make the most out of the experience and it would be cool to run a category, you know, sweep a category, to see Alex Trebek again, to get the ins and outs of what taping an episode is like. And then I won.

Q: So that was on your bucket list, you checked that one off, what’s next?

A: It was something that was on my mind, I would love, I’ve never been to Paris. I would love that